


folie à deux

by wolfwithpanthereyes



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Bodyswap, Denial of Existential Crisis, Episode: s04e06 The Spirits of Moon River Brewing, Existential Crisis, Gen, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed, blink-and-you'll-miss-it mention of Shane/Sara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-29
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-05-15 11:52:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14790014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfwithpanthereyes/pseuds/wolfwithpanthereyes
Summary: “You think we just - what, pretend to be each other?”Shane grins. It looks entirely too out of place on Ryan’s face (Ryan’sface, the one he’s only ever seen in reflections and photos, this is a funhouse mirror horrorshow). “Yeah, Ry, wepretend.Why, you got a better idea?”Ryan does not have a better idea.(it's the Spirits of Moon River Brewing episode, but Shane and Ryan are going through a bodyswap)





	folie à deux

**Author's Note:**

> You know how like 75% of fics in this tag have the disclaimer "wow I can't believe Buzzfeed Unsolved has me writing RPF again"? 
> 
> Yeah, that. 
> 
> (I blame [this post](http://queerunsolved.tumblr.com/post/174254107831) entirely.)
> 
> Almost all dialogue during the scenes in this fic where Shane and Ryan are shooting the Moon River Brewing episode are lifted directly from the episode. There's also a mention of the BFU True Crime episode 'The Bizarre Roadtrip of a Missing Family'.

Ryan hates this. Hates this, hates this, _hates_ this. 

Shane’s fingers are stupidly long. Ryan’s known this for as long as he’s known Shane but, as he accidentally jabs himself in the eye for the fifth time in as many minutes, he’d never realised _how_ stupidly long they were. 

“Fuck it, I’m wearing glasses,” he declares. 

Shane pauses mid-brush, toothbrush hanging awkwardly from the corner of his mouth. “Probably for the best.” He’s avoiding eye contact with Ryan. That’s fine. Ryan’s been avoiding it too. “I’d prefer if I didn’t go blind.”

“You and me both,” Ryan mutters, clicking the lid closed on the contact lenses and shoving the glasses back on his face. He gives a start when they fall down his nose a little bit in a way Ryan wasn’t expecting and Ryan _hates_ this. 

Hates how the sound of his voice reverberates throughout his throat in a way that’s unfamiliar enough to make him all jittery. Hates how he’s so, so aware of how far away the floor is, and how his forehead still smarts from where he accidentally whacked it into the bathroom door frame, and, oh yeah, he hates how _stupidly long_ Shane’s fingers are. 

“Aw, man,” Shane says suddenly. “I’m using my toothbrush on your teeth. That’s… that’s so gross.”

\---------

“I’ll say this,” Shane says when the cameras are rolling, all light and innocent. “The exterior looks quite nice.”

“Yeah, it does,” Ryan says in agreement. Not that he’s in agreement. The big dark brewery is, quite frankly, somewhere Ryan Does Not want to be. Nevermind that he was the one that chose this location and researched it thoroughly for a good week. He’s kind of got bigger things to think about tonight. 

\--------

Filming is going ahead as normal despite Ryan and Shane currently being as far from normal as they possibly can reach, and that’s including Shane’s ridiculously lengthy arm span. 

“Okay, here’s the plan,” Shane said a few days earlier, once they were finally ready to think rationally again. Or as rationally as was possible, anyway. “We get the episode done, and then we just. Figure out where to go from there.”

“Shane, I’m _in_ you!” Ryan says, because he hasn’t quite yet reached Shane’s state. “You think we just - what, pretend to be each other?”

Shane grins. It looks entirely too out of place on Ryan’s face (Ryan’s _face_ , the one he’s only ever seen in reflections and photos, this is a funhouse mirror horrorshow). “Yeah, Ry, we _pretend._ Why, you got a better idea?”

Ryan does not have a better idea.

\-------

“Are ghosts real?” Shane says. There’s no hesitation; he just barrels through the opening like he can’t wait for it to be over. It’s all Ryan can do to remember the brief headshake that’s become one of Shane’s little trademarks. 

He can edit it later to make it look like it happened immediately. 

This episode will probably need some very heavy editing. 

Ryan should be fine with this - it’s not like he hasn’t imitated Shane a hundred times before - but there’s still that jittery unfamiliarity reverberating throughout every nerve of his borrowed (hopefully) body that’s keeping him tense. They’re gonna slip up in a way they won’t even notice in the editing room and then someone will know. 

He holds out a hand abruptly, says, “Sorry, I wasn’t - I thought I saw a big spider over in the corner, I wasn’t paying attention. Retake?” 

They retake the intro. This time Shane rattles it off with a little more conviction, and Ryan does his headshake at the right moment. Shane mentions the moustache, as promised, and Ryan -

Well, Ryan slips into some god-awful Southern accent he hadn’t intended at all. 

He stops talking mid-sentence, certain he must be blushing from sheer embarrassment at whatever the heck it was that just slid from his mouth, but Shane’s returning grin seems a little wider, a little more genuine. 

“Oooh, I like that! Keep that up, Ry - anjo. Ranjo Banjo.” 

This take, Shane starts with “A mustachioed Shane and Ryan”, pointing to each of them in turn (Ryan suspects he’s doing it more for their own benefit than for the episode’s narrative).

Ryan’s still feeling a little self-conscious, but hey, he works for Buzzfeed. He’s used to doing all kinds of weird things on a daily basis. “Feels good here in Savannah,” he drawls out, adding a wink for the camera.

Shane laughs and goes in for another attack on the moustache and all tension in Ryan’s body leaks away. The ghoul boys have got this. It’s going to be okay. 

\----------

“Not being able to get the contact lenses in is understandable, I get that,” Shane says. He’s wearing Ryan’s own glasses and his eyes are too bright behind them. “But the moustache? _Really_?”

“I think it looks good!” Ryan says innocently, running his fingers over his freshly-shaved cheeks. He’s lying. Oh, he’s absolutely lying. If he’s got to be stuck with this ridiculous Sasquatch body, why can’t he have a little fun with it? Besides, the beard Shane was attempting to grow looked just as ridiculous as this. Ryan’s just - helped that ridiculous look along a little.

Seeing his reflection as Shane’s face with a goofy moustache is also easier to stomach than seeing his reflection as Shane normally, but that’s neither here nor there.

“There’s no way I’m not roasting you for it on camera.” 

“You’d only be roasting yourself.”

Shane flings his arms into the air overdramatically. “Fine! You win this round, Madej!”

They stare at each a little too long.

“Too far with the Madej?” Shane says finally.

“Yeah,” Ryan says. “A little.” 

\---------

“Well, Mister Stark, we’ve travelled a long way,” Shane says, and then he pauses, too long for Ryan’s liking. 

“To see you,” Ryan automatically prompts. 

“To see you,” Shane immediately echoes. 

“Well, I didn’t come here just for him,” Ryan says. What he means is that he didn’t come just for the ghost of Stark, he came for _all_ the ghosts rumoured to be in this building, but it comes out sounding more like, well, Shane than he expected. Maybe that’ll work in his favour.

\-------------

“Let me get this straight,” Shane says. He’s wearing Ryan’s glasses again, his hair damp and sticking to his forehead from his previous shower (and oh, isn’t _that_ something Ryan desperately hopes he’ll forget about when they solve this bodyswap case they’ve got going on - he doesn’t want to remember what Shane looks like naked. He doesn’t want to remember that Shane knows now what _he_ looks like naked). “You want us to do homework on our own body language?” 

“Each other’s body language,” Ryan corrects, hovering beside his bed. Not only is Shane stupidly tall but something about this body feels overwhelmingly light - like he could flap Shane’s noodle arms and just. Fly away. It’s probably vertigo. “Move over.” 

Shane obliges, scooting across on the single bed so Ryan can slot in beside him. They’ve done this a few times before, when they’ve had to rewatch footage or record snippets of audio again in other hotel rooms, and every time Ryan is amazed by how two grown men are able to fit together on such a small space. 

“You’re pushing me off the bed!” Shane exclaims, right as Ryan nearly falls off the bed himself and dooms the laptop to a smashed existence on the faded hotel carpet. “Here, lemme-” He does a weird shimmy with his hips; Ryan copies him and they wriggle together, enduring a couple more near-falls, but eventually Ryan flings his arm around Shane’s shoulders and pulls him close and they settle. Shane is almost uncomfortably warm against Ryan but at least the laptop is balanced evenly on their thighs and neither of them seem in danger of tumbling off.

“Okay,” Shane says, pushing Ryan’s glasses up his nose as he absentmindedly snuggles up against Ryan’s chest. “Get those videos rolling! Looks like we might need that homework.” 

“Told you,” Ryan says, a little too smugly. 

\----------

While they’re heading to the next location, Shane elbows Ryan gently in the ribs and mutters, “nice one with the whole ‘push me down the stairs’ bit. Didn’t think you had it in ya.” 

“Thanks,” Ryan whispers back. He has to kind of - droop his shoulder down and bend his knee a little to make sure Shane alone catches it. Being a human skyscraper kind of sucks. “You’re doing a pretty good job too, y’know.”

“Oh, I know,” Shane says with a wink. “Your part in this is easy. Hey, ghosts, talk to the spirit box. Talk to the EVF. Hey ghosts, give me a nice lil shove that’s not gonna hurt me, some chills down my spine.” 

“One day the ghosts are going to kill you and I’m not going to stop them,” Ryan says. “Enjoy being Mr Nice Guy while you can.” 

“Says the guy who just asked the ghosts to push him down the stairs.”

“It would have been _your_ body lying broken at the bottom.” 

“Oh, it wouldn’t,” Shane says. “And you know why? Because there’s no such thing as ghosts.”

Ryan snorts and turns away, pretends not to have caught the hitch in Shane’s voice as he said that. 

(Well, technically it was Ryan’s voice, but whatever.)

\-----------

“I’m a paranormal investigator and I take my job seriously!” Ryan says loudly and firmly. He makes a mental reminder to edit the episode so the camera isn’t focused on his face at the time, so the grin he was unable to hold back won’t be shown. 

Shane will forever be known as a serious paranormal investigator and he’s just going to have to live with that.

\---------

Not much is happening in the way of ghostly activity tonight. 

Ryan’s heart is sinking a little. It’s been sinking a little for a while, the small firm ‘believer’ patch he wears over his heart with pride. Unsolved Supernatural is all about hunting for evidence and this season especially, it seems like they’ve had little to show for it - the odd voice recording here and there, sudden knocks that seem unexplainable even despite Shane’s annoyingly logical explanations, the odd creeping sensation like someone’s dripping ice water down his spine. Little things but not many that even Ryan would put firmly in the ‘Evidence of Ghostly Activity’ box.

He’s still a Believer with a capital B - nothing’s going to change that, not when they’re still getting even those little glimpses, and especially since, oh yeah, he's currently _stuck in his best friend's body_ \- but his attitude towards the spirits in these buildings is changing. Evolving, in a way he’s not certain he likes. 

They’re going through the motions in the ballroom - calling for the ghosts to contact them, trying a few different phrases to see if anything will cause an odd occurrence. It doesn’t matter right now which of them is Shane and which is Ryan. 

So Ryan turns abruptly to Shane and says “I feel like you’ve gotten very aggressive with the ghosts this season, in a way that betrays your true belief.” 

He says it the way he thinks Shane would, all slow and self-assured, letting each word hang there in a way that shrieks _skeptic, I’m a skeptic, I don’t believe in this stuff_. He wants Shane to remember that he’s currently playing at being Ryan, playing at being a believer. Ryan wants to see what Shane will come up with in defence of those beliefs he so adamantly denies. 

He doesn’t expect Shane to rise so readily to the challenge. 

\-------

“What was that all about?” Shane says after.

“Huh?” 

“The whole, y’know-” Shane leans in, rocking up on his toes. He’s quieter, speaking as Shane again and not as a Ryan Bergara impersonator. “Urgh, you’re so short. The fuck you ghosts thing.”

Ryan shrugs. 

What else can he do? 

Shane stares at him, and Ryan hates that it’s his own face looking up at him like that. 

“C’mon,” he mutters, knocking the edge of his glasses with his wrist so they sit better on his nose. The frames suddenly feel incredibly constrictive. “Next location. Maybe we’ll get something better.” 

He expects Shane to remind him that they won’t get anything better from a ghost. That they’ll just have to look for a good gust of wind or a stray rat scrabbling against a wall because ghosts don’t exist.

Instead, Shane keeps looking at him, and Shane says, “Maybe”. 

\-------

The first day they’re stuck like this is spent entirely in panic and new discoveries. Shane refuses to go to the bathroom for a good hour until Ryan eventually hustles him towards it, hoping to spare his body whatever injuries might come. Ryan whacks his head on the door frame and prods himself in the eye five times. They spend a substantial amount of time simply gawking at their reflections, at each other, at the bodies they’re currently stuck in. Ryan frantically types their symptoms into google and falls down a rabbit hole of tv episodes just in case one of them has a hint on how to get back to their good old regular bodies. Shane flat-out refuses to run at Ryan from an opposite corner of the room in the hope that a collision will fix things, and they spend a good hour debating the pros and cons of such a method. 

(Shane eventually gives in and they try it. All they get in return are a new collection of potential bruises). 

Despite everything, the first day ends ridiculously quietly. They get dressed, they go out, they have dinner at the nearest diner. 

“Aren’t you at all worried about this?” Ryan hisses over his burger as Shane takes his fiftieth selfie with the hot dog he’d ordered. It hasn’t escaped Ryan that Shane has decorated the hot dog with the available condiments to look suspiciously like a Hotdaga character and that social media will probably soon be witnessing these photos for themselves. “I mean - you don’t believe in ghosts. You don’t believe in this stuff. How are you acting like nothing’s wrong?”

Shane adjusts his phone as if he hasn’t heard Ryan, smiles wide at the camera as he flashes another shot. The smile drops the instant the photo is taken and he places the phone face-down on the table. They’ve been avoiding eye contact all day, the two of them, but Shane looks at Ryan dead in the eye now. 

“Gee, what do you want me to say, Ryan?” His voice is light but there’s something steely in the way he’s holding himself - _Ricky Goldsworth,_ Ryan thinks with a start. It’s that same intensity. He doesn’t much like being on the receiving end. “This thing we’re going through proves the existence of the human soul and that’s one step closer on the way to proving ghosts exist? And I can’t even dismiss it as a shared hallucination now, because we facetimed Sara and she didn’t even recognise me as me? Is that what you want?” 

This is the chance. If Ryan takes it now, they can delve into the mysteries of the human soul like they’ve discussed many times before, and which Shane has always dismissed. “Yeah, I’d like to believe it, but where’s the evidence?” Shane would say. And here the evidence was. All the evidence they needed. 

“Well, Ryan?” Shane says icily. He drums his fingers against the surface of the table and suddenly Ryan gets it. He feels like an idiot for not getting it sooner. 

Shane’s the biggest skeptic of them all. For all Shane’s apparent steel, this evidence could tear him as easily as scissors ripping through tinfoil.

Ryan breaks eye contact.

“‘s good food here,” he mumbles.

They don’t discuss it again. 

\------

“What if I pan my flashlight over there and there’s a face?” Shane says suddenly, and then immediately does so. 

There’s no face, because of course there’s not, but for a second Ryan’s heart leapt into his throat just in case there had been (and because it’s Shane’s throat, that’s a bit more distance for his heart to cover than normal). 

“Why would you think that would happen?”

Shane gives a tiny shrug. “I dunno. Worth a shot.”

\--------

Shane volunteers to go to the top of the stairs, which is fine with Ryan. Sure, ghosts haven’t hurt him on any of his expeditions yet - and there’s the big _yet_. He doesn’t want them to start hurting him now. 

“Get comfy,” Shane calls down to him. “I’m gonna be up here for a while. Gonna get you some of that good ghost evidence.” 

“That’s what we’re here for!” Ryan announces to their surroundings at large, in case any spirits happen to listening in. He leans against the wall, fiddling with the camera on his chest, then allows himself to slump down at the foot of the stairs. If Shane’s taking the chance to sit and have a break, Ryan may as well allow himself one too. “Wanna get the spirit box out again?” 

“Do you _want_ me to walk out of this investigation?” Shane grasps the railing, miming jumping over it, then sits down with a thud. When he next talks, he’s addressing the ghosts. “Y’know, it’d be _really_ unfortunate if someone snuck up on me right now.” 

“Push him as hard as you can!” Ryan calls out, then instantly regrets it. It’s dark in here, that’s his excuse, because he momentarily forgot Shane was in his body, and any ghostly shoving would result in a broken leg for Ryan. Karma’s a bitch. 

Maybe Shane’s thinking the same thing, because he perks up and announces “You can do that if you want!” 

And maybe that’s all they need. They reach out to the ghosts a few more times and Ryan comes up with a pop culture reference out of the blue that he immediately wants to edit out of the episode, but then Shane’s dancing. Dancing and singing on the top of a set of haunted stairs, probably as revenge for the moustache and for Ryan announcing Shane takes his paranormal investigating seriously and maybe even for Ryan springing that conversation in the ballroom on him. Shane looks ridiculous and he’s making Ryan look ridiculous. 

“You like the dancing?” Shane grins, thrusting his hips in a way Ryan didn’t even know his hips could move. 

“It’s not great!” The real Ryan is all eight feet long limbs sprawled at the bottom of the stairs and he doesn’t even care because he’s laughing and it’s like something tight unwinding in his chest.

“Guess the ghosts don’t go for that,” Shane says when he finally heads back down the stairs, laughing giddily himself, and Ryan suddenly very much wants to hug him. 

“Guess they don’t,” he agrees, and when Shane holds out a hand to help Ryan get to his feet because he’s stumbling around like a newborn giraffe, Ryan gives his hand an extra squeeze. 

Shane squeezes his hand back. 

\---------

“The basement will be the last location tonight,” Ryan says, fumbling with the buttons on Shane’s shirt. “We’ll do our usual five minutes in, five minutes out, and then we should have enough footage to wrap up and head for - what are you doing?” 

Shane jumps back from the mirror, as if he’s a kid who got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Nothing!”

 _Kinda looks like you were checking out my biceps,_ Ryan thinks. 

“I was not!” 

“Oh, woah! I said that aloud?” 

“You sure did, Ryan oh buddy boy.” He spins on his heel to face the mirror again, and - yeah, he was definitely checking out Ryan’s biceps. He’s not even hiding it anymore. “I mean, technically they’re mine now.”

“You didn’t put all the hard work into them.” 

“Yeah, well.” Shane pushes back the sleeve of the shirt he’s wearing, flexing his left arm. “Anyway, you were saying about the basement?” 

Ryan sighs, finishing up the last button. “Last location of the night. We get footage. We come home. We then - I don’t know, figure out our next move from there.” 

“Basement,” Shane repeats, still staring entranced at the mirror as he prods Ryan’s bicep. “Boy named Tobester. Possibly a ghost, possibly a shadowy demonic entity. You act all tough and try not to get possessed, I’ll throw a little of the old Bergara fear around.” 

“My body’s already possessed by you, how can I possibly be afraid?” Ryan points out. 

Shane grins. 

\----------

Ryan doesn’t like the basement. 

No surprise there. 

He tries a little bit of Shane’s “fuck you ghosts, come and get me” attitude, but he’s in a dark basement where the possibly demonic entity of a little boy lives and the lights are all switched off, so he won’t even see the shadow of said demonic entity of little boy. Inviting a demon to possess him doesn’t seem as terrible when it’s Shane’s body he’s offering up for possession, and that’s about as far as Ryan wants to push his luck. 

Time up, he takes the steps extra slow to show that he’s not scared. That he wasn’t expecting anything to appear down there.

(Honestly though, he’s kind of disappointed again at the lack of paranormal activity.)

“How was it?” 

Ryan stops mid-step. “Huh?”

“How was it?” Shane repeats, leaning casually against the top of the banister. 

“It was great.” It sounds flat even to his own ears. 

Shane leans forward. “What if you call out to me down there, I don’t respond, and when you find me I’m just - standing in the corner.” 

“I’m going to close the door and leave,” Ryan says, just as flatly as before. He’s not ready to join in the banter again just yet - he had been _sure_ while researching haunted properties that maybe this brewery, maybe this time…

“You’re gonna- you would just leave me?!” Shane’s face lights up and Ryan can’t help but begin to smile back himself. 

Trust Shane fucking Madej to make him feel better about not being possessed in the basement of an empty brewery at three in the morning. 

“Yeah!” 

“Why?” 

“If you’re possessed, we’re not taking you home.” 

“Too bad I already am,” Shane says, grin wider than ever as he pats the same bicep he had been admiring before they left to go ghost hunt. 

Ryan rolls his eyes but he’s grinning himself now. He can’t help it. “Get down to that basement and fetch us a ghost, why don’t ya?” 

\--------

Shane doesn’t fetch them a ghost. But that’s fine, because it means they can wrap up shooting for the night and head back to the hotel. 

“Well, g’night!” Shane announces and immediately slumps face-first onto his bed. “Or g’morning. God, the only bad thing about filming this show is how much I wanna sleep through it.”

“The only bad thing?” Ryan says. “Shane, we’re in each other’s bodies, in case you forgot!”

“And?” Shane turns his head, resting his cheek on the mattress so he can look at Ryan as Ryan collapses onto his own bed. “Being you was a breeze. A piece of cake.” 

“Do I even need to bring up ‘give me the business’?” 

“Fans’ll eat it up!” He gives a crooked smile and a thumbs up. “You just watch!”

“You’re the worst.” Ryan reluctantly sits up, fumbling once more with his shirt buttons. “How’d the basement go? Really?” 

Shane shrugs. “Eh, it was fine. Did a bit of the old scared Boogara routine. You’ll see the footage later. You?”

“Fine. Did a bit of the old fuck you demon Shaniac routine.” He stops undoing buttons, his hands still clutching the cloth of his shirt. Shane’s shirt. “Hey, Shane?” 

“Yeah?” Shane rolls over onto his back and stretches lazily. His arms go above his head and his shirt rides up, exposing bare skin, and it’s _weird_ that Ryan is forced to watch his own body move the way he’s watched Shane’s move for years. “What’s up?”

Ryan wasn’t going to bring this up again. But it’s four in the morning and the chest beneath his hands is Shane’s chest and the heart beating inside it is Shane’s heart and it’s on the tip of his tongue. 

“We didn’t get much ghost stuff tonight but like - we have proof of the supernatural here.” He moves his hands from his chest to his lap. Flexes Shane’s stupidly long fingers as they rest on his jeans. “Should we - should we have been recording this? Recording us?” 

Shane is silent for a long moment, staring at the ceiling. “Ryan, I… I don’t want to talk about this.”

Ryan curls his fingers into fists on his thighs. Breathes in for eight, breathes out for eight. “Yeah. Nevermind. Don’t worry about it.” 

“Let’s - we’ve done the episode.” Shane pushes himself upright and tugs at his shirt. “We can talk about what we’re gonna do to fix this when we wake up Just like we said, yeah?” 

“And if we can’t?” 

There’s only the sound of Shane’s heartbeat in Ryan’s ears. 

In for eight, out for eight.

“We will,” Shane says firmly. “Of course we will. Folie à deux, remember?” He pulls his shirt off over his head, tosses it across the room so that it just misses Ryan’s backpack. “Get some sleep, Ry. You never know, maybe whatever thing did the-” he makes a gesture between them, “might do it again tonight and we won’t have to worry about it.” 

“You’ve said that the last four nights.” 

“And maybe tonight I’ll be right.” Shane falls back onto the bed, lifting his hips and wriggling them from side to side as he shoves his jeans off, while Ryan quickly turned his attention back to his own clothes and tried to not look like he was staring. “We’ll just have to wait and see.” 

\-------

“Folie à deux,” Shane says suddenly.

Ryan jolts wide awake. “Huh?”

Shane twists the laptop a little so Ryan can see it better. The video he’s got up is one of their True Crime episodes - the Australian road trip family. “Folie à deux,” he repeats eagerly. “Ryan, don’tcha get it? _That’s_ what this is!” He jabs at the laptop screen where the words are shown, white on black, the way Ryan had edited it. Ryan tries to follow along while attempting to inconspicuously wipe drool from his chin and from where he’d been leaning on Shane’s shoulder. “We’ve spent too much time together and we’re now suffering a shared hallucination!” 

Shane’s eyes are shining and Ryan doesn’t have the heart to point out that they’ve already dismissed that theory. 

“Yeah, okay,” he agrees. He didn't realise his own face would smile so wide. “Folie à deux. That’s us! Sure.” 

\-------

“Ryan? You awake?” 

Ryan says nothing, because a) he’s too comfortable right now to move right now, even if it would just be his mouth, and b) he’s mostly asleep by this point anyway. 

“Ryan?” 

He stays silent and hears a loud exhale from Shane in the bed over - still with Ryan’s voice, so the switch back Shane was hoping for hasn’t happened yet again.

“I want to believe, y’know.”

Ryan stiffens under the sheets, eyes squeezed tightly shut. He should have said something. Should have spoken up, should have let Shane know he was awake - Shane’s addressing him, yeah, but it’s like Ryan’s suddenly intruded on something private. 

He’s debating whether or not to give an exaggerated yawn and fake a bathroom break when there’s movement on Shane’s bed, the thud of feet hitting the carpet, and suddenly Ryan’s being gently shaken. 

“Move over,” Shane mumbles, and Ryan gives up pretense of sleep and does so. 

“You okay?” Ryan says quietly as Shane crawls in beside him. They have to move around a bit like they did when they were watching through old Unsolved episodes and Ryan has to give up his comfortable position from before, but Shane is trembling. He buries his face against Ryan’s shoulder like they’ve done this for years and Ryan curls his arm around Shane’s shoulders as best he can. 

They lie like that for a while, Shane’s hands curled in Ryan’s shirt - the shirt Shane himself would normally wear to bed - and Ryan holds Shane until he stills, his cheek pressed against Shane’s hair. His own hair. He never thought he’d be the big spoon for himself.

It’s more intimate than they’ve ever been, regardless of whose bodies they’re currently inhabiting. 

“Fuck,” Shane mutters eventually, his breath hot against Ryan’s neck. “Fuck. I keep thinking this is a dream, but I’m not waking up.” 

Ryan opens his mouth to say “maybe tomorrow”, but he can’t get the words out. Can’t make a suggestion he doesn’t believe in. 

Instead, he says quietly, “we’ll figure it out tomorrow. Get some sleep, Shane.” 

“I hate this,” Shane mutters. “Hate this, hate this, _hate_ this.” 

“Yeah, I know.” One arm is trapped under Shane’s shoulders; Ryan slides the other around Shane, rubs small circles between his shoulder blades the way Ryan likes to be soothed when he’s in his own body. “I know. At least it’s you.” The last part slips out - he hadn’t meant to say it. 

Shane exhales roughly, another burst of hot air on Ryan’s neck. “Yeah. At least it’s you. Wouldn’t wanna be anyone else.” 

Ryan gives a soft hum of agreement. “Night, Shane.” 

“......night, Ryan.”


End file.
